Lady Gaga – Seventh Album

[deepston]

As influential as Lady Gaga is (or used to be), saying she's the pop artist of this generation is a reach. Surprisingly, I think this generation didn't have one individual pop icon but multiple ones over the years. Definitely, there is not an artist of the caliber of Madonna when speaking of pop domination but rather several pop eras which were iconic on their own.

[theflying]

(Taylor Swift)

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

Feb 26, 2018 12:08:36 GMT -5 theflying said:

(Taylor Swift)

I’d say Rihanna over Taylor if we’re going “generation”. Unless we’re considering only the subsection of white girls.

[Albie]

Popping into this thread after a minute and I'm like

[Snowbeast]

Feb 26, 2018 10:54:17 GMT -5 deepston said:

As influential as Lady Gaga is (or used to be), saying she's the pop artist of this generation is a reach. Surprisingly, I think this generation didn't have one individual pop icon but multiple ones over the years. Definitely, there is not an artist of the caliber of Madonna when speaking of pop domination but rather several pop eras which were iconic on their own.

Sorry- I should rephrase. Had she continued to do what she was doing for the first five years, and remain active in the pop scene, she would have been. She was the most disruptive artist to the pop music scene in a long, long time.

I agree that there isn’t a clear cut superior at this point in time.

[Snowbeast]

Feb 26, 2018 4:41:50 GMT -5 SHOOTER said:

It’s pretty impressive she managed to sell 600k+ units in the streaming era. Very interested to see what direction she takes with the next album

No it’s not. She should be pulling Beyonce numbers. If anything, it’s a sign that it was the wrong move and another misfire

[Caviar]

Beyoncé has the support of urban audiences that Lady Gaga doesn’t. She’s doing fine.

[BDGeek]

I understand the disappointment fans feel with the direction she's gone musically and visually with her last few projects. But honestly, if she kept going the way she did from 2008-2012, she'd probably be dead. The amount of energy it must've taken her to maintain the original Lady Gaga persona had to be exhausting, and she definitely alluded to that during the ARTPOP era when talking about her drug and alcohol struggles, etc.

Even after scaling it back, she's still cancelled tour dates for her chronic pain. I would rather she take care of herself and her music lose some of its edge than push creative boundaries to the point where it kills her. I want Gaga (and all artists) to stay happy and healthy so they can keep entertaining for many years to come.

[Albie]

Feb 26, 2018 15:15:28 GMT -5 Snowbeast said:

Feb 26, 2018 4:41:50 GMT -5 SHOOTER said:

It’s pretty impressive she managed to sell 600k+ units in the streaming era. Very interested to see what direction she takes with the next album

No it’s not. She should be pulling Beyonce numbers. If anything, it’s a sign that it was the wrong move and another misfire

Lol I saw that Taylor edit.

[Snowbeast]

Feb 26, 2018 15:46:09 GMT -5 Albie said:

Feb 26, 2018 15:15:28 GMT -5 Snowbeast said:

No it’s not. She should be pulling Beyonce numbers. If anything, it’s a sign that it was the wrong move and another misfire

Lol I saw that Taylor edit.

Lmao! I looked at her numbers again and was like “good lord, those are way too high.” And decided Beyonce was a better comparison of what she should be doing

[HEADOFTHEPACK]

Feb 26, 2018 13:06:44 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

Feb 26, 2018 12:08:36 GMT -5 theflying said:

(Taylor Swift)

I’d say Rihanna over Taylor if we’re going “generation”. Unless we’re considering only the subsection of white girls.

Agree. I think Taylor will be remembered for commercial prowess over anything else. She hasn't defined a generation at all.

[Oprah]

Taylor and Rihanna are more impressive if you just look at stats but I feel like Gaga was ultimately bigger. She was ubiquitous at her peak in a way that's rare these days and her style had an immediate impact.

[#LisaRinna]

Gaga is iconic. It's undeniable.

[deepston]

Feb 26, 2018 16:22:55 GMT -5 HEADOFTHEPACK said:

Feb 26, 2018 13:06:44 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

I’d say Rihanna over Taylor if we’re going “generation”. Unless we’re considering only the subsection of white girls.

Agree. I think Taylor will be remembered for commercial prowess over anything else. She hasn't defined a generation at all.

Agreed as well but I think Rihanna is far from defining a generation as well. As I said, there isn't one female artist that defines this generation in my opinion. Instead, I think it's up to everyone's taste to decide which artist is their artist of the generation.
Rihanna got strong singles and amazing creativity with some of her releases.
Katy Perry is one of the top sellers when it comes to singles and she's definitely the one with more hit songs.
Taylor Swift has an impressive ability to move huge amounts of albums and has a very big fanbase.
Lady Gaga is one of the most influential and disruptive pop artists of our generation with amazing sales across the board as well.

Over the past decade, in the US there just isn't total domination by one artist instead, every pop diva shares highs with the others.

[#LisaRinna]

Gaga is THE popstar of this past decade. The way she brought back the music video culture, the pop culture impact, the hits, the fashions, controversy. No one has been as influential in POP music the last 10 years imo.

Some people may have obtained bigger commercial success (i.e. album sales or more #1 Hot 100 hits) and other(s) may have solidified an already built legacy, but we're talking impact on a 360° level from the get go.

[Juanca]

I agree that Gaga IS the biggest female pop star of the last decade. Her impact was comparable to what Britney and Madonna did in their primes. Both had other stars as big as them or maybe more critically than commercially successful than them (eg Janet, Whitney, Christina), but both defined an era. Gaga defined an era as well.
And she was on the path to become a huge long-term star, but slowed down. I can see people disappointed. I’m not.
Madonna released You Can’t Dance as an era with Spotlight as a sort of single (huh?). In 1990 she decided to record I’m breathless and go all jazzy. Yeah it surrounded Dick Tracy but it wasn’t the soundtrack (and Vogue was a B-side that turned into a single and sort of out-of-place addition to that project). She diverted but then came back. Gaga sort of came back already with The Cure (song) and John Wayne (video), but both needed push to become the hits they could’ve been.
In any case, I’m GLAD that she slowed down. It seemed quite clear that something wasn’t right during the ArtPop era, with the whole helicopter dress, naked dancing in the park, vomit painting, random senseless speeches—and later sort of corroboration by Gaga that she wasn’t in the right place. She rebuilt her image and made people focus on her voice with The Sound of Music and Cheek to Cheek, and later with Million Reasons. That’s a long-term investment. She’s focused on raising awareness through her foundation and Till it happens to you —that’s personal strength.
If anything, I just wish that Perfect Illusion had been stronger (Marc Ronson, wtf happened there?) so that it could’ve been a bigger hit. The album is a strong one and showcased an artist’s variety and wide range that I believe will be important for her career-at a minimum to help her regain strength as an artist. Her sales are nothing to sniff at either in this context, so great for her. This was her strengthening period and that’s perfectly fine.

Now, for LG6 give me the Cure-John Wayne combo in multiple singles and I’ll be happy come back to pop with a vengeance, Gaga!

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

Happy 8th anniversary to the best 9 and a half minutes of visual media this decade:

[wjr15]

It’s gonna be hard for anyone, including Gaga herself, to top the Telephone music video. Truly an iconic visual and one of my favorite songs from Gaga.

[Dreams]

AMAZING video.

[Future Captain]

I love Telephone, but the terrible dialogue (Intentionally or not) really dragged it down for me. But I'll be a liar if I said that it's not damn iconic

[kmbgs]

I'm still waiting for Part 3

[SPRΞΞ]

that was her absolute peak, imo. The tippity-top.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Feb 26, 2018 19:24:54 GMT -5 #LisaRinna said:

Gaga is THE popstar of this past decade. The way she brought back the music video culture, the pop culture impact, the hits, the fashions, controversy. No one has been as influential in POP music the last 10 years imo.

Some people may have obtained bigger commercial success (i.e. album sales or more #1 Hot 100 hits) and other(s) may have solidified an already built legacy, but we're talking impact on a 360° level from the get go.

The was the reason everybody was doing electropop. They wanted to grab the Gaga sound. Anybody who denies that is delusional. She wasn't the first to do it, or even the best, but the way she did it was what changed the game.

[SuperTrouper]

I'll give that her music videos have been exciting back in the day (for about 1 and a half album cycle) - but all that "artist of the decade" / "popstar of this generation" talk made me chuckle, mainly because nobody mentioned Adele.

[Deleted]

Mar 12, 2018 16:20:32 GMT -5 SuperTrouper said:

I'll give that her music videos have been exciting back in the day (for about 1 and a half album cycle) - but all that "artist of the decade" / "popstar of this generation" talk made me chuckle, mainly because nobody mentioned Adele.

Because being the popstar of your generation and the highest selling artists are two completely different things. Adele has her own legacy/iconic achievements, but being the biggest popstar isn't about how many awards you win or albums you sell. When Telephone dropped it was literally all over the news with fox news journalists outraged over the violence/queerness of the video and it was a huge deal. It's about the big moments that stick out, Gaga showing up to the VMA's with Kermit the frog/cross-dressing and performing as a man/jumping from the roof at the superbowl/all the iconic outfits etc. She made being quirky and eccentric a trend(Kesha/Nicki/Katy even on Teenage Dream all definitely were influenced by this and used it for their own image) and even the backlash against her during ARTPOP was huge like Madonna's Erotica/sex book backlash, it's not like she flopped and no one cared, even when the sales haven't been there people have always paid attention.

Adele has her own thing going on and her whole appeal is that she isn't a popstar in the traditional sense at all.

[Glove Slap]

Mar 12, 2018 15:40:58 GMT -5 YourFaveIsAFlop said:

Feb 26, 2018 19:24:54 GMT -5 #LisaRinna said:

Gaga is THE popstar of this past decade. The way she brought back the music video culture, the pop culture impact, the hits, the fashions, controversy. No one has been as influential in POP music the last 10 years imo.

Some people may have obtained bigger commercial success (i.e. album sales or more #1 Hot 100 hits) and other(s) may have solidified an already built legacy, but we're talking impact on a 360° level from the get go.

The was the reason everybody was doing electropop. They wanted to grab the Gaga sound. Anybody who denies that is delusional. She wasn't the first to do it, or even the best, but the way she did it was what changed the game.

Yeah she was definitely the tipping point for the electropop boom. There were hits that sounded like someone set out to make a track like Just Dance as close as they could without literally plagiarizing it. I also think her reluctance or inability to move past it in the right direction (vs. the direction of BTW) when trends changed to EDM is one reason why her time as a major force seems a lot shorter in the rearview than it did at the time. To illustrate my point, We Found Love (or something along those lines) was a track that could have come from her and kept her at the front of the pack of electronic music in the mainstream. I remember when Starboy (the song) dropped, someone here mentioned that it sounded like something she could have done as well. Granted trends come and go, and new acts are always coming up the pipeline, but it's still surprising how early she got left behind in moving the sound of Pop forward, when she was one of the ones that really used electronic music as the basis and how big it grew.

On the whole though, I think Joanne was far more of a right move than wrong for her. I strongly disagree with the stuff from a few pages back about how she should have carried herself like during the start of the decade because it was all that ultimately led to people not being into her. When you take the OTT approach, it's really hard to cross the line from being exciting to predictable and then go back in the same manner. Striking the kookiness was key towards continuing on for her.

I'm curious as to how things might have played out as far as singles success and radio if something like The Cure was sent to radio as a one-off during 2015 (rather than when that sound was on its last legs) to keep her name on the charts with a hit, and then pretty much anything else other than PI (probably the duddiest of dud lead singles this decade) had led Joanne, but either way she's in a much better place than she was after the campaign for her previous album wound down.

[#LisaRinna]

Mar 12, 2018 16:20:32 GMT -5 SuperTrouper said:

I'll give that her music videos have been exciting back in the day (for about 1 and a half album cycle) - but all that "artist of the decade" / "popstar of this generation" talk made me chuckle, mainly because nobody mentioned Adele.

Adele hasn't brought any innovation in any particular field. She's just a girl with talent who broke through at a moment when people were tired of a particular sound. She was the novelty that everyone latched onto because it was cool to do so and it had a nostalgia factor to it.

Singers with big voices have been doing organic AC ballads forever.

[Deleted]

Mar 12, 2018 17:06:42 GMT -5 #LisaRinna said:

Mar 12, 2018 16:20:32 GMT -5 SuperTrouper said:

I'll give that her music videos have been exciting back in the day (for about 1 and a half album cycle) - but all that "artist of the decade" / "popstar of this generation" talk made me chuckle, mainly because nobody mentioned Adele.

Adele hasn't brought any innovation in any particular field. She's just a girl with talent who broke through at a moment when people were tired of a particular sound. She was the novelty that everyone latched onto because it was cool to do so and it had a nostalgia factor to it.

Singers with big voices have been doing organic AC ballads forever.

As someone who honestly loves Adele, this is the tea. I think some people might take offense to calling her a novelty but I don't think that's an insult at all. Her success can't be debated and no one is doing that, but there's so much more that goes into being influential/iconic/defining a period of pop culture. I actually think part of Adele's success was that she was seen as the antithesis to Gaga and due to people being tired of Gaga's impact on pop culture, which just goes to show how big of a deal Gaga was.

Saying Adele is the pop star of her generation is like saying Celine Dion is the defining artist of her time. People get way too hung-up on sales/charts when it comes to discussing this stuff.

[Enigma.]

Happy Birthday Mother Monster!!

[Enigma.]

Also this:

Ready to be slayed yet again